- Date of Release: 21 February 2025
- Genre: Romance, Comedy
- Language: Hindi
- Watch On: Theatres Only
Mere Husband Ki Biwi
Introduction
The three protagonists of this film could have been Archies, Veronica and Betty if they were to exist in an alternate reality. But because the setting is Delhi and the household gags need to be Punjabi, you have the Chaddas, Khannas and the Dhillons. To make this a more secular world, you have a Muslim character specifically a friend cum side-kick who randomly utters the words, ‘Inshallah Boys Played Well’, a recall to the English uttered by Pakistani cricketers from the 90s. And then there are a bunch of SRK references – two characters meeting at a dhaba named ‘Mannat’, a character recreating an SRK moment during his proposal scene with the ‘Mohabbatein’ title track, to name a few. And…and there is also a Bollywoodification of a medical terminology ‘Retrograde Amnesia’ with respect to a character in one instance, only for it to be completely forgotten from thereon! The new Hindi film Mere Husband Ki Biwi is an ode to the Punjabi-ness on celluloid, except that it isn’t a fitting one. It is stereotypical, unfunny and largely a slog with little to no pay-off.
Story & Screenplay
Pitched as a circle and not a love triangle, Mere Husband Ki Biwi interestingly opens with a voice-over at the start (something that I disdain with the amount of spoon-feeding it serves), only for the film to lose its voice both literally and figuratively. If this was a Badass Ravikumar (2025) with songs being played out at the drop of a hat, I would have sit up and applauded it. Sadly, there is a stale ol’ structure to it that never allows the drama to break the stereotypes or even the grammer of filmmaking. You are introduced to Ankur Chaddha (a poker-faced Arjun Kapoor) who is traumatized with the vision of his wife Prabhleen (Bhumi Pednekar), often shown to be attacking him. Even when he meets the charming Antara (Rakul Preet Singh), he stutters while having an awkwardness as his virtue even as he braves through a hand-gliding session over some scenic locations. He has a muttering friend Rehaan (Harsh Gujral) for company who doubles up as his man friday while trying his best to set him up with Antara, the new woman in Ankur’s life after his divorce with Prabhleen. Unfortunately in a weird turn of events, the two ladies are pitted against each other for the ultimate ‘prize’.
The biggest disappointing aspects of the drama remained its comedy, or rather the lack of it simply because it decided to resort to such standard tropes in the drama – a depressed person being subjected to the exposure of ‘skin’ featuring foreigner girls, a ‘tharki’ fatherly character lusting over them, a random entry of a character from the hills wearing a mini-skirt because she was once the heartthrob of the college, and even ridiculed by a female character who takes objection to her jumping the line. Where is the comedy really? If I was partly cringing, the supposed surprise for me remained the flashback portions involving Ankur and Prabhleen that actually accounted for some level of compassion from the viewers. The cutsie tid-bits at the start to actually taking each other for granted, to eventually ‘wishing’ to emphasize on the character of Ankur being a red-flag in the wake of patriarchy, the drama actually started to tie-in together effectively. I also did not mind the over-the-top and mushy behavior of Ankur while trying to woo Antara, or even Antara’s brother coming across as a variant of Arjun Rampal from Housefull in a scene, to completely giving in to their relationship. It was kind of run-of-the-mill stuff but decently watchable.
The issue for me begins a little before the halfway mark wherein the standard trumpcard of Bollywood in taking a medical issue and filling it with ‘fluff’ sets in. In a scene we are told that Prabhleen having met with an accident is lost memory of her last 5 years, which basically takes her to the point wherein Ankur had proposed to Prabhleen for the first time. This, while Ankur has moved on with Antara and the duo plan to get married. This may seem to be a decently interesting concept on paper but it turns out to be the most random and stereotypical affair ever! As it is, the gags never did stick once but the proceedings that seemed watchable were now reduced to utter nonsense. And one of the reasons remained on which character to actually root for – would it be Antara who randomly fakes an organism with Ankur to psychologically impact Prabhleen in a scene (despite knowing her condition; By the way, the duo share a torrid past too), or is it Prabhleen who literally fakes a near-death situation in order to be close to Ankur. All this while I wondered, why are the two girls head over heels for a guy who is a walking red-flag while the other green-flag guy is still single and penning this review! Oh well, such is life…
The drama is actually so random after a point that characters are literally plugged into the narrative without having to contribute anything in the screenplay. In a scene, a random character pops up at the airport even as the drama is on the cusp of shifting from Delhi to Scotland (again, God Knows Why), wherein another character remarks, ‘We’ll see who he is after we get there’. The game of one upmanship was so bland and so unfunny that it took away the budding romance of the first hour, only for the events to be reduced to a stereotypical competition with a prize such that both stand to lose. And you would understand the cliched nature of the writing when the drama shifts tones to something serious while ending at the airport. Oh Bollywood….oops the Hindi Film Industry, have you totally lost the plot? Where is the creativity? Where is the humour? Where is the writing? The screenplay here left me with far too many questions by the end of it.
Dialogues, Music & Direction
The dialogues are downright unfunny and completely devoid of even an iota of humour. In fact, some of the most unintentionally funny lines were felt in a scene involving a doctor who asks the family to inform him when the patient wakes up. In another scene, another character of the doctor educates the characters about Retrograde Amnesia while forgetting himself. This was your typical low-brow humour that was only effective in the late 90s, and completely unfunny in 2025. The music has to be one of the highlights of the film given that the songs did act as some respite from the tepid drama. But the songs were recycled too. Oh well, atleast they did work. The BGM is flat and doesn’t heighten the drama at any given point in the screenplay. The cinematography is adequate with some good aerial shots and decent frames that add to the vibrancy of the drama. The editing is a little choppy but still decent with its end product. Director Mudassar Aziz who had previously directed the enjoyable comedy Khel Khel Mein doesn’t get the humour quotient of the drama right. In fact, the direction remains middling even with its world building and characterization that seemed so standard and stereotypical that it almost reeked off a stalemate. The novelty factor was missing but so was the quintessential factors that once did make Rom-Coms like these work – Romance and the Comedy! This was a bland attempt at every step in the drama that instantly made for a forgettable outing from the director.
Performances
The performances are just average here and it hardly comes as a shocker given the credentials of atleast one of the three leads (if not two). Dino Morea tries hard to put up a strong act but the frivolous nature of the writing never fully utilizes him. Kanwaljit Singh and Anita Raj are decent. It was nice to see the combo of Bulla and Chutya onscreen together after Gunda. Both Mukesh Rishi and Shakti Kapoor are good here but it remained a missed opportunity to use meta-humour for their characters here. Harsh Gujral follows another one of those casting tropes of standup-comedians getting an acting gig. While he isn’t bad, he doesn’t quite land a few jokes, often missing the mark with his comic timing. Rakul Preet Singh looks pretty but seems slightly awkward with her expressions while missing out on accounting for the beats of her character. She just fumble with her dialogue delivery here. Bhumi Pednekar remains the strongest performer, being head and shoulders above most actors. There is a definite energy infused every time when she appears onscreen, and she gets the pitch and tone of her character really well. That brings me to Arjun Kapoor who is yet again at his mediocre best after a blip in Singham Again wherein he actually was good. The problem with Arjun lays with his dead pan expressions that always flatten the humour in a scene. His dialogue-delivery never allows the lines to land perfectly either, often reducing his performance to a bland variant of his actual self (which by the way is so much more funny in interviews). And it is frustrating for a reviewer like me to be patient with an actor who has now spent a decade and a half in the industry, yet is still resorting to such mediocrity with half-baked outings. And that quite honestly is Arjun’s filmography comprising of few hits and so many misses. The clock is ticking, time to wake up and pull up your socks, Arjun!
Conclusion
Mere Husband Ki Biwi is a cliched and a stereotypical Rom-Com that can best be described as unfunny, uneventful, mediocre and everything in between. The lack of creativity is completely baffling and that is soon beginning to bother me now. Available in a theatre near you.
